


How Deep the Bullet Lies

by aldonza



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, The Phantom of the Opera (TV 1990)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24568234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldonza/pseuds/aldonza
Summary: 1990 Miniseries AU. The opera ends. Christine leaves. Gerard disappears. And Erik is in shambles, in more ways than one.Or, Erik lives. But surviving is only half the battle.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	How Deep the Bullet Lies

**Author's Note:**

> "Don't start another WIP, don't start another WIP-" I tell myself. I failed and this was born. I'm not usually an EC shipper in Phantom canons, but the 90 miniseries is one of the only versions where I thought EC should have been endgame, and I've always wanted to see a fix-it like this, so decided to write it out. Besides, I noticed that I haven't whumped Cherik yet, so here we are!

Erik is dead. Or rather, he should be. He is never anything he should be. Pity.

He knows he lives because dead men do not feel the bite of a bullet in their chests. The tear and wear of stitched skin and however deep that little piece of steel went before it’s scooped out like a speck of dirt. Dead men do not feel the ache of knitting bones and cracks beneath flesh. They do not remember the sensation of falling and the world turned upside down or the splatter of a body- skin and bone and blood- on pavement.

And they do not feel the hot and heavy weight of a broken heart. In a haze of dreams, he sees her face, the gentle eyes and yellow hair. Christine smiles, sometimes cries. He sees her hand on his own, hears her hum in his ears, feels her lips upon his crown. The fabric of her dress beneath his thumb, her arm in his, the beat of her heart against his own-

And the fear she felt for another man. As the pieces close in, he remembers, that strange unwelcome realization of falling- sinking- in love when he watched her outside the bistro, arm in arm with Count de Chagny. Better this way, he’d thought, but failed. And then his last memory is of her shout- “If you love me-”

_ If you love me, do not harm him. _

And closing his eyes once her back turned, de Chagny’s arm around her waist. For the best, he thought, but it had hurt to see, hurt more than the coughs and gunsmoke and concrete beneath his back.

He thinks,  _ It really is better to be a ghost, isn’t it? _

He had the right idea, once. Better to pretend he could not bruise or weep, better to pretend he was always dead. Better to pretend he ever had any say in this life at all.

Maybe that’s why Erik did not want to wake up. But he does.

He wakes to wet coughs, thinking there’s blood in his lungs. He wakes to a burning shoulder, flames twisting around his forearm and down his side. His chest splits in half, something dreadfully wrong with every inch of him.

He wakes to pain. And the worst part is it never ends. If not for Gerard’s voice, he’d be sure he’d gone to hell. 

“It’s all right,” Gerard,  _ his father,  _ says, a hand on Erik’s brow, pushing back locks of hair.

He doesn’t remember when Gerard’s last seen his face, if Gerard ever had. His palm burns, just like the skin upon Erik’s face. And for the longest time, his eyes stay closed, his throat just as tight, and singsong wheezes all he hears. It’s fair to call it the nastiest cold he’s ever caught, to be honest. 

His biggest ailment is still the hole in his ribs, second only to his face. It’s unclear how he hears of it, but somewhere between Gerard’s voice and a stranger’s, he learns of the bullet that lodged itself between his ribs, of the ripping tissue and torn bone. His arm’s popped itself out of its socket and there’s something about a smashed knee. A hemorrhage in his side, stitches along his head. If his body’s such a mess, it’s no wonder the stranger wasn’t too terrified of his face.

Perhaps that’s the one part of him left undamaged.

But it should have ended there. Why else would he let Gerard point the gun, if not to kill? Lying here, drugged and bedridden and addled with pain- it’s hardly the way he wants to wake up.

_ Father, please, _ he almost begs,  _ end it now. _

But he only hears Gerard shush his moans. 

And when he next awakes, Gerard is gone. Erik counts the hours, the tick of a grandfather clock somewhere around. Perhaps downstairs? Curtains are drawn, but it’s only when Gerard is gone that he knows this is not the theatre. The opera ended, a lifetime ago, it seems. His home- his domain, the little kingdom of lies he’d built from birth to death- is gone, no doubt raided and torn apart.

But he cannot find it within himself to grieve.

He only lies back, sinking into pillows he’s never felt until now, and sleeps. Come dawn, specks of light trickle in from behind drawn curtains, never pulled apart. And he watches the light dance. He does not remember the last time he’s seen light from the sun, not the flame of a candle or the lights on stage. 

Honest, real light.

And then he feels the tears run. He lets himself cry, but he feels no grief, no joy, only the need to release something upon his naked face.

* * *

Gerard does not come back. Not in the evening. And not in the morning. Erik stops waiting for him, too tired to focus. It’s better now. He can waste away without Gerard spooning food into his mouth. And if some poor fellow finds his ugly corpse, he can only hope the fright won’t be too bad.

But someone stays in the house, flat, whatever it is, nonetheless. A woman with a slight limp. She fixes him broth at least twice a day and puts him to sleep with the other stranger’s draughts. They never speak and she rarely looks upon his face.

Erik cannot recall what she looks like. A severe woman, he thinks, a widow perhaps, if her black cloth is anything to go by. She does not speak to him, does not put her hand to his head as Gerard had done, but she changes his dressings and washes the hole in his chest.

She’ll leave when Gerard returns. Erik’s sure of this. She is the nurse his father hired, he concludes stupidly late. Perhaps the fall did more to his skull than he first thought.

But then she brings him a mask one day.

“Monsieur Carriere says it will make you more comfortable,” she tells him. It is the first thing she’s ever said to him.

When he reaches for it, with the one arm that obeys, she swats him away. “When the cut on your head heals. Do not put it on now.”

She leaves it on the nightstand and rises, duty done.

“Where is he?” Erik croaks.

The nurse looks at him for once, really looks at him, a spark of pity in her dark eyes. Then it’s gone, replaced with grim judgment. Perhaps for Gerard. And a twinge of defense sparks in him, for his father, the only good man he’s ever known.

“I don’t know,” she says.

Then he is alone again. Gerard does not come back. And Erik thinks he’s far too old to call himself an orphan now.

* * *

It’s very early in the morning, or very late at night, when he hears the sound of footsteps storming towards his room. Erik wakes, not with a jolt, but with a slide, and he isn’t sure if it’s the skip of his heart or the tear of a wound that makes him expect Gerard. He almost hopes it’s Gerard. He’s spent his days thinking, that if he sees his father again, he will not begrudge him for cheating him of death. He will be the son he always should have been, with or without a face, and he will find a way to pay Gerard back franc by franc for all the trouble he’d once caused.

All the trouble and death. Yes, if he was Gerard, he would not want to look upon Erik anymore as well. He rehearses this all in his groggy mind, ready to speak, when his door clicks open.

And then the words dry up in his mouth, burnt to dust.

It’s a trick, he thinks. A dream. But he blinks and she only comes closer. And the draughts are wearing off, or else the pain would not be so high. He can feel the ache of each wound, agony in his veins. Frantic, he reaches for the mask, just as her fingers- warm and real- crush his hand in a desperate grip.

She is in front of him by then, just as he remembers, haloed with gold, a brush of sea in her eyes. 

“Christine,” he says, breathes, the prayer tumbling out before he can even think more, before he can even recoil from her gaze.

“Erik,” she answers, her voice as tender as heaven’s hymn, “Erik-

But her tongue is firm, burning with a strength he’s never heard, all the more confirmation that she exists outside his mind. 

“They told me you died,” she says by his ear, arms around his neck, just as she had embraced him at the piano, but tighter now, longer. And he detects no horror, no pity in her words.

_ I did, _ he wants to say, _ I should have. _

“Christine,” he says instead, whispering each thought out, “why? Where’s the Comte? How-”

“My heart breaks without Philippe,” she tells him, pulling apart to stare him directly in the horror of his face.

Her fingers brush the corner of his eye, smearing away a bead of gathering salt.

“But my life ends without you,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this! Comments/kudos are more than welcome. I'd like to continue this but I don't know how frequently I can update it, so please let me know if it's to your interest!
> 
> I've always been conflicted about the miniseries ending because on one hand, I do very much approve of the Erik whump, but on the other hand, I do not think he should have died. So as improbable as it is for him to survive his canon illness and gunshot wound AND falling off the Garnier rooftop, I've decided to make it probable and turn it into the 90 Y/K hurt/comfort fic I've always wanted to see.


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